Inferno+Escape

=INFERNO ESCAPE= Cara Silverman



Instructional Objective
Learners will be able to identify a variety of preventative measures that can be taken at home to decrease the chance of a fire, as well as what actions they should take if a home fire were to occur. They will also learn about the characteristics of and first aid treatments for various types of burns.

Inferno Escape teaches and reinforces the Health Education Content Standards for California Public Schools recommended by the California Department of Education (CDE). The learning objectives introduce and familiarize learners with some of the injury prevention and safety information the CDE insists should be included in elementary school health education.

Learners & Context of Use
Inferno Escape is designed for learners ages 6 and up. While there may be wide variations in their level of pre-existing knowledge, the information will be consistent in its relevance to the players. The use of common household products and situations helps learners personalize the information which can also generate an increase in interest. The game includes a wide variety of information and will be most effective if played multiple times so that the content can be reinforced and internalized. It also has a simple set-up and basic set of rules that make it conducive to a number of different environments. There are, however, two primary learning environments in which the game is designed to be played.

School: Can be played in grade 1-6 to increase knowledge amongst students, promote fire awareness and discussion at home, and motivate students to take action and use preventative measures to reduce the risk of a fire. It can also be used as part of the 1st, 4th, and 6th grade health education curriculums, as much of the content parallels the standardized Injury Prevention and Safety (IPS) content outlined by the CDE for those grade levels.

Home: Can be played at home from ages 5 and up to increase and build upon knowledge of family members, and promote fire awareness and discussion at home. It also aims to motivate families to take action and use preventative measures to reduce the risk of a fire, and to ensure that all family members know what to do in case of a fire.

Competing Products
I found several games which appeared to have a similar topic, however the majority of them would not be in direct competitvion with my product due to their lack of coverage and information. There was, however, one game which did provide a detailed list of tips on what do in case of a fire and how fires can be prevented. The game Fire! Fire! is also a race game which requires players to correctly answer fire-related trivia questions to move forward. It also has two aspects to determine the winner, advancement along the board and the movement of a second piece up a ladder. One difference in the game is the layout. While players in Fire! Fire! have four separate arbitrary paths leading the the center of the board, the paths taken by the players in Inferno Escape will start separate but merge together as they proceed through the burning house. This provides players with more information on not just fire prevention and safety, but also what to do if there were a fire. Another difference is that Fire! Fire! ends when the first player has both pieced reach their final destination. Inferno Escape does not end until all players reach the family's pre-determined meeting location outside the house.

**Object of the Game**
Players race through the blazing house, trying to get to the family's pre-determined meeting spot in the front yard as fast as possible. Player must answer a number or question testing their knowledge on fire safety to hellp them to be the first to reach the meeting spot.

Content Analysis
Content Analysis

Game Materials

 * Game Board
 * Fire Awareness Cards
 * Fire Prevention Cards
 * Fire Escape Cards
 * X Cards
 * 4 Playing Pieces
 * 1 Dice
 * 4 Pads of Paper
 * 4 Pencils


 * The Game Board**



The layout of the board depicts the floor plan of a house. The path of the game is designed to simulate the process of escaping from a burning home. Along the way there will be a number of obstacles, shortcuts, and choices presented that mirror situations you could be confronted with in the event of an actual fire.

Fire awareness cards will include information about different types of burns, their causes and characteristics, and what first aid treatments should be used on each. The following is an example of an awareness card question:
 * Fire Awareness Cards**

Q: Which of the following should NOT be done for treatment of a Second-Degree burn with opened blisters? (a) Hold burn under cool water for at least five minutes to stop the burning process (b) Cover burn with a dry, sterile gauze bandage (c) Change bandages daily, soaking area in water before removal to prevent bandage from sticking

A: (a) Running cool water over open blisters can increase the risk of shock

These cards include tips and information about fire prevention at home. They highlight some of the most common mistakes people are making and fire hazards that are appearing in homes today. The following is an example of a prevention question.
 * Fire Prevention Cards**

Q: You should stay in the kitchen when you are:

(a) Baking. (b) Frying. (c) Simmering. (d) Steaming.

A: (b) Frying

Escape cards will give learners a choice between actions to take in the event of a fire and demonstrate possible outcomes resulting from those choices.
 * Fire Escape Cards**

These cards will add a random element to the game and provide the possibility for a number of different obstacles or shortcuts. X Cards would have directions such as: Falling embers block your path, lose next turn.
 * X Cards**

Time Required
Inferno Escape takes 3-5 minutes to set up. Playing time can last anywhere from 15-45 minutes and is not expected to continue over several play periods.

The Rules
Open the board and place the four types of question cards (awareness, prevention, escape, and X cards) face down on the designated areas on the board. Each player or team picks a playing piece and places it at one of the four starting locations. Players roll dice to determine the order of play. Highest roller goes first and then turns are taken in a clockwise direction. Determine the difficulty level the game will be played at (Beginner-1, Intermediate-2, Advanced-3).
 * Set up**

1. Roll dice and move that number of spaces on the board. 2. When landing on spaces marked, have the player to the right read the question on the corresponding card at the pre-determined difficulty level. 3. Answer question and follow directions on the card for how many spaces to move. 4. Continue taking turns in a clockwise until every player has reached the family meeting spot in the front yard. 5. Players may occupy the same space.
 * Play**

TO WIN: First player to make it around the house and to the meeting spot wins.

Motivational Issues
This game uses a number of different motivational factors on both an individual and interpersonal level. My first take was to gain the attention of the individuals to evoke an interest in them. I used a big and bright image of a house on fire, hoping to provide them with some degree of perceptual arousal. And by depicting a wide variety of common situations and scenarios that could be present in the learners home, I increase the relevance the topic has to them, which helps to sustain their interest throughout the game. Additionally, throughout the game players are presented with challenges of varying difficulty which correspond to different levels of goals. These goals can range from successfully answering a card to winning the game. Players are rewarded for correct answers and punished for incorrect ones. This provides them with a number of success opportunities as well as frequent performance feedback on their fire awareness, prevention, or escape knowledge. Game should be played at a difficulty level that produces more corrects answers than incorrect ones from the majority of the players yet still challenges most of them. This is because successful answers are encouraging to learners and increase their self-esteem and interest, where as too many incorrect ones can produce anxiety and make learners resistant to play. On the other hand, if their skill level is too high above the difficulty level of the game, they will become bored and loose interest. At the optimal difficulty level, the cards should serve as both shortcuts and obstacles for each player depending on their knowledge on a particular subject. The fact that players get the choose the difficulty level and their answer to the card gives them a certain level of control over how they proceed through the game, which can also help motivate learners to play. But if the players had too much control in their movement along the path then it would be extremely easy for them to predict the outcome of the game, at which point the person in the lead would most likely be the only person still interested. I decided to use the dice, 'X' Cards, and multiple shortcuts and obstacles as random and unpredictable events to keep players interested in the game and uncertain about its outcome.

When played by each learner individually, the primary interpersonal motivation comes from the competition the game requires between players. And though there are far more individual factors contributing to the motivation of the learner, the competitive nature of people and the natural desire to win adds a weight to every question, answer, and decision a players makes that should not be underestimated, When played as teams, learners are still competing in the same ways, but are also now cooperating with other learners in their attempt to win.

Design Process

 * Designing & Developing**

After running through a quite a few different board game ideas I finally decided to do mine on fire safety at home. I initially wanted to do just safety in general but i was quick to realize that the scope of that topic was far too wide to cover in a single game. Deciding the type of game was easy, as neither battle or pattern really fit with the content. Initially I wanted the path of the race game to proceed through a burning house with players racing to be the first to escape. However there was some incongruency between having the game long enough fo actual play and having the players exit as quick as possible, so i changed it to the layout you see where they proceed around the house. The next step was to decide to content I wanted to teach. I knew I wanted to include information on how to prevent and escape fires, and as i browsed through websites for some preliminary research I started to see knowledge about treatment of burns as an important aspect of the topic. There was plenty of information on the internet about my topic, so I used that with a combination of the class lectures to match content to structure elements. I tried to keep in mind all the elements that make things fun and motivate learners. I also wanted to make it as relevant as possible so I intended to have obstacles and barriers to be in situations that could occur at the location they are at. For example, if they landed on a space at a door, there would be a number of different sceinerios they might encounter, like what they should do if there is smoke coming under the door, or if there isn't, or whatever. And I wanted to prevention and escape methods to coincide with their location along the path. That idea, however, was doomed to fail because there was no way to have all those elements involved at specific locations. So I decided to have the spaces along the path determine the information they would be taught or tested on. And because the players were a family and their goal was to get to a meeting spot I didn't want the game to end when the first player reached the end. So I used two factors to determine the winner, the first to the end, and their health level when they finish. That way they had multiple goals. With my vision complete, I sketched out a board, made some cards, and was now ready for play-testing.


 * Implementing & Evaluating**

The first play went well overall, and the feedback I got was generally positive. Most people liked the idea and saw it as appropriate for the audience. However some suggestions I got were to increase the variety of the game by possibly adding more shortcuts or different spaces, and also to shorten the game by having it end when the first player reached the end. I agreed there needed to be more variety in the path or spaces but was resistant to the idea of having the game end before everyone reached the meeting spot. I thought it was contradictory to a crucial piece of content, that everyone reaches it there, and wanted both health and speed as important. But after further reflection on the play-testing I decided that even though only a few turns were taken, players proceeded slowly and there was definitely a risk of them losing interest by the end of the game. And if one player is trailing far behind, having them go turn after turn trying to reach the end would be a little ridiculous. And I have to admit, even though the play-testers said they understood how to determine the winner, I don't think their understanding was the same as what I had actually intended. In the end I thought it'd be better to cut the whole health aspect out altogether and have the game end when the first player finishes. I think the primary lesson I learned from the whole process is that while I kept trying to add more to the game to make it fun and interesting, what I really needed to do was keep it as simple as possible.